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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25963570">Bedtime Stories</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashgeda/pseuds/Ashgeda'>Ashgeda</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Echope - Freeform, F/F, Lesbian Character, The 100 - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:14:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,171</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25963570</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashgeda/pseuds/Ashgeda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Echo froze when Hope looked back at her with her incredibly soft, yet mesmerizingly fierce eyes.<br/>They just stared, and she wondered what she would do if, for some reason, Bellamy ended up costing her Hope.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Echo/Hope Diyoza</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. In His Name</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Echo wasn't counting the days anymore. She had been putting all her energy into playing the part she needed to play in order for Orlando to think they were worthy. It wasn't hard, and Echo usually had impeccable patience, but she wasn't just loyal to Bellamy. She longed for him in ways she had never longed for anyone, and she didn't know what she would do if, after waiting five years, she didn't get him back.</p><p>He was an invisible force that kept her going, and the only reason she even tried to survive.</p><p>At least that's what she told herself.</p><p>An arrow cut through the air with a hiss and darted in the seemingly never-ending forest.</p><p>Hope Diyoza smiled proudly and lowered the bow. The arrow's head had pierced the bulls-eye with impeccable precision. Hope turned around to find a smirking Echo, who nodded slightly in approval.</p><p>"Not bad," Echo said as she walked toward the younger woman and reached for the bow.</p><p>"Top that, spy," Hope teased and turned away to get the arrow before she could see Echo's smirk vanish.</p><p>The unshakeable familiarity of the moment took Echo aback, but before she could get herself to even think about the day she became Echo, a growl, followed by an out of control Gabriel, knocked Echo off her feet. The bow fell out of her hands, and she landed face-down, Gabriel's weight resting heavily on her back.</p><p>Hope was about to pull the arrow out of the tree when she heard Gabriel's growl followed by a thud behind her. She groaned and let go of the arrow that was embedded in the tree before she turned around.</p><p>"What the hell?" Hope let go of the arrow and turned around to meet an always jarring sight.</p><p>Gabriel on top of Echo.</p><p>Hope scolded herself for not thinking about doing that earlier. Echo seemed distraught, and it would have been the perfect time to strike her down and make aunty O proud.</p><p>"Sorry, Gabriel," she said, more to herself, and charged towards the two of them, her eyes solely focused on Gabriel.</p><p>Gabriel, still pinning Echo's wrists against the ground, heard Hope's stride and frowned, confused.</p><p>Echo saw Hope running towards them out of the corner of her eye and grinned.</p><p>Gabriel looked back, and immediately held his hands in the air when he saw Hope.</p><p>"No, no, no, no!" He pleaded, and Echo took the chance to sit up, grab him by the shoulders, push him to the ground, and straddle him.</p><p>"No fair," he said, and Echo shrugged.</p><p>"Hesitation is--"</p><p>She was thrust against the ground once more and wasn't surprised to find fiercely brown eyes staring down at her, once her back hit the ground and Hope Diyoza straddled her torso. Almost the entirety of her body was in contact with Echo's, and no matter how determined Echo was to not let those eyes defeat her again, her core was starting to feel warmer than usual and she was tempted to just let her win.</p><p>But Echo knew better than to let Hope win for a moment of weakness. </p><p>She saw Hope let her guard down when their eyes met, Echo knew exactly what she had to do.</p><p>She started lifting her head as much as she could, being that Hope had immobilized her arms, and Hope let out a silent gasp, growing confused, as the distance between their faces almost turned their wrestle into something else entirely. Echo could sense Hope's breath against her lips, and Hope remained still, frozen as she thought about all the things the spy could do, having her lips so close to her. She thought of all the possibilities, and her mind wandered back to that day in the lake, when they had been in a similar position.</p><p>She thought of all the possibilities but one.</p><p>"Echo what—" she breathed out, but she didn't get to finish her sentence, and her eyes widened when Echo put her knees in between their bodies and pushed Hope to the ground.</p><p>A grunt escaped Hope as her back hit the ground, and Echo was now the one straddling her, pressing her arms against the ground.</p><p>"Hesitation is death," Echo said, her chest rising and falling heavily as she smiled proudly.</p><p>The younger woman pursed her lips, and she struggled against Echo's grip, but she could not manage to move more than a few inches.</p><p>"You are strong," Echo said, noticing Hope's struggle to move against her body.</p><p>She leaned down and they both felt it when Echo's lips grazed Hope's cheek on their way to Hope's ear.</p><p>"But you're too stubborn," She whispered before pulling away from Hope, who was both confused and fascinated by the speed at which her plans had changed. Sorry, aunty O. </p><p>They stared at each other, both secretly taking pleasure in the pressure that still pushed Hope against the floor. Hope struggled some more, and Echo shook her head when, once again, Hope couldn't move more than a few inches.</p><p>Hope groaned when she accepted that her efforts were useless and surrendered.</p><p>"The spy wins," she called out from under Echo, and the former smirked.</p><p>"I think you owed me for last time," Echo replied and got up from over Hope in a flash and stretched out her arm to the other woman, who was sitting up.</p><p>"Last time" Hope started and grabbed her forearm reluctantly, her face covered in sweat, "you let me beat the crap out of you."</p><p>Echo helped her to her feet, and they kept a steady grip on each other's arms for a moment, both sporting proud grins. Their eyes met, and both of their chests rose and fell rapidly as if what they had just done was not something their bodies were used to. Truth was, ever since that day in the lake, their chests would be set on fire whenever they even met eyes.</p><p>It terrified Echo that she had no reason to block her emotions, and she had no one telling her what to do about the constant burning inside her chest.</p><p>Their almost staring contest was interrupted when Echo noticed Gabriel muttering some anomaly nonsense to himself. Echo frowned and broke eye-contact rather unexpectedly to look at Gabriel.</p><p>Hope's mouth opened slightly when she realized Echo was not looking at her and let go of Echo's arm.</p><p>Echo was taken aback by the sudden lack of contact between their skins, but she crossed her arms almost immediately and watched as Hope made her way to Gabriel as she wiped her gleaming forehead. He brushed off some leaves from his clothes, still muttering nonsense.</p><p>"You okay, old man?" Hope said, mocking Gabriel with fake concern, and Echo smirked.</p><p>"He's okay," Echo said, and looked back at Gabriel, who now looked at them, "He just needs a minute to catch his breath."</p><p>Hope chuckled and a sigh escaped her lips.</p><p>"That wasn't fair, you both have far more experience..."</p><p>Hope nodded amused and listened to Gabriel's rant about all the reasons his defeat had been unjust, while Echo scanned the ground for the bow she had dropped when Gabriel struck her.</p><p>She found it laying just a few feet away from her and crouched to grab the bow. Her fingers wrapped around the bow and her grip tightened as she examined it. Gabriel on the other hand, went on about how it wasn't fair that the Azgeda spy got help, when she was clearly the most capable one out of the three of them.</p><p>It only took a few seconds for Echo to, once again, feel like she had been there before. The day she stole Echo's name. Her blood went cold, and she looked up at Hope, who was now making her way to pull the arrow out of the tree.</p><p>She had not felt such a strong connection to anyone ever since the day she plunged an arrow into her best friend's chest. Air caught in her throat when she remembered the feeling of the arrow in her hand, as the little girl's skin tore and she said, I'm sorry, too.</p><p> Her mind wandered back to Hope, and this time, it was her, coughing blood on her face.</p><p>She was struck back into reality when she stared at Hope, struggling to get the arrow out of the tree.</p><p>Echo froze when Hope looked back at her with her incredibly soft, yet mesmerizingly fierce eyes.</p><p>They just stared, and she wondered what she would do if, for some reason, Bellamy ended up costing her Hope.</p><p>She knew she would not let Hope die. Not even in his name.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Lake</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>What happened in the lake will not leave Echo's mind, and when she wakes up in the middle of the night, Hope nowhere to be found, she realizes just how much has changed.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Do it, Echo," Bellamy's voice resounded in Echo's ears, and even though she had not heard the voice that had brought her so much serenity in so long, the timbre of his voice felt more chilling than the snow beneath her back.</p><p>The air was thin and Echo's heartbeat pounded heavily in her chest as her best friend stood above her, ready to stab her in the heart. She looked into her eyes... so fragile.</p><p>"I'm sorry," The girl said and raised the knife in the air, Echo's heartbeat pounding in her ears as her eyes watered.</p><p>"I'm sorry, too," she said, and she reached for the arrow that had been long forgotten on the ground.</p><p>Before she knew it, she had plunged the arrowhead into the younger girl's chest, and she felt the flesh tear.</p><p>Her dry mouth let out a broken gasp, and the tightness in her chest made it hard for her to breathe in, but the exact moment she froze was when someone else's voice came out of her best friend's mouth.</p><p>"Echo?"</p><p>It was not Hope's undoubtable voice that quenched Echo's heart dry. It was seeing her best friend's face morphing into Hope's delicate features as Hope gasped for air and blood gushed out of her mouth.</p><p>"What did you do?"</p><p>Warm tears fell over Echo's face before she fell back into the darkness of the cabin.</p><p>As soon as Echo opened her eyes, she realized just how much things had changed in just a matter of a few weeks.</p><p>Bellamy was not her main concern at the moment. Especially not when her heart pounded in her ears because she had just seen a blood-choking Hope die right in front of her, and it had been her fault.</p><p>The spy had not had a single pleasant dream in decades, but she always knew when she was dreaming. There was always something she could pinpoint as unreasonable. But apparently, seeing Hope getting hurt was uncomfortably reasonable.</p><p>She had seen her fight, and she knew it was foolish to worry about such a skilled, not to mention almost unfathomably agile, young woman. It was foolish to be terrified of Hope getting hurt, after only a few weeks of constant arguing, occasional smiling, and a few reassuring stares, the lake... It was foolish, but it felt more real than anything she had felt in a long time.</p><p>Echo laid still for a few seconds, trying to steady her breathing. A soft light crept through the window, and Echo realized dawn was upon her. She covered her face with her hands and sighed into them, getting used to the feeling of being in bed, only a few feet away from Hope, who was completely safe.</p><p>She was almost certain she would find Hope's peaceful sleeping figure only a few feet away from her, but she sat up hastily when she found that the makeshift bed beside her was empty.</p><p>"Hope?" She said into the only partly lit up room.</p><p>Had she not come back the night before? Echo had waited a few hours before letting herself doze off because she wanted to make sure Hope came back from her short walk. From what she remembered, Hope had walked in and whispered 'goodnight', and that had been the sole reason Echo fell asleep at all.</p><p>Echo was aware that Hope knew Skyring better than anyone else in that cabin. She scolded herself for letting a silly dream put her in such alertness.</p><p>The image of Hope's lips soaked in red, and her warm tears falling on Echo's face was creeping back into her mind, and that is when Echo decided she needed to distract herself. She stretched her arm out in an almost robotic manner and reached for the pair of Octavia's boots Hope had left by the bottom of her bed.</p><p>She put the boots on, mentally feeding her confidence with thoughts that Hope had snuck out a while after she said goodnight.</p><p>She convinced herself that she was getting out of bed, not because she was worried about Hope, but because she was well-rested enough to go for a run and maybe do some scouting.</p><p>Hope was the one who found you in the lake.</p><p>She walked out of the room and walked by Gabriel, who was latched onto a pillow and mumbled something in what Echo assumed to be Spanish. She was genuinely intrigued by that tongue, but as she walked out of the cabin, her thoughts were elsewhere.</p><p>Bellamy managed to make his way back into her mind after a couple of seconds of walking within the humid air of a barely awakening Skyring. She was on yet another planet because they had taken the man she loved away from her. This was all for him. The show they were putting up for Orlando, the gardening, the remaining as sensible as possible and not drowning in the lake trying to get to him... well, that last one took a few nights of sneaking out and a hysteric Hope.</p><p>Echo's thoughts started racing again. Bellamy, Hope, the anomaly, Octavia... Her chest went back to feeling like it was about to implode, and the need to run increased as she grew impatient. Bellamy was probably not even in his final destination yet, and Echo had been worrying for almost two months, but she felt like her time was running out.</p><p>She went faster with every frustrating thought and before she knew it, she had stopped dead in her tracks, her worries suddenly washing away when she saw Hope seating by the lake, contemplating the ring in the sky.</p><p>It took her a few seconds to realize it was relief washing over her.</p><p>Echo was breathing heavily, arms-crossed, as the light started to creep over the horizon, and a purple tint glazed the sky. She looked from Hope to the still mesmerizing ring in the sky, and she took a moment to appreciate how incredibly unfamiliar it felt to not worry about anything but the sun rising and taking the flawless view away from her.</p><p>"My mother came here every day," Hope said, and Echo looked at her curiously from where she stood, slightly startled by the sudden interruption of the quiet.</p><p>Hope picked up a rock from her side and ran a finger over its surface, a subtle smile on her face as she felt the first delicate rays of sun graze her skin.</p><p>"It is a beautiful view," Echo said, a gentle smile on her face as she approached the younger girl.</p><p>Echo reached Hope's side and Hope looked up, her hazel eyes almost melting into Echo's brown ones.</p><p>Hope shook her head and looked back down at the rock she was twirling in her hands.</p><p>"I doubt they will even consider coming back to Skyring," Hope said, "Mom might, but Octavia..."</p><p>Echo nodded and bent down to sit down next to Hope.</p><p>"Octavia belongs with her family," Echo said, "and with the size of her current family... she'll need more than one cabin."</p><p>Hope looked at Echo, who met her with soft eyes and felt herself going back to the night in the lake. The same lake they sat by at that very moment. The moment that had been following them for a few days, and was yet to be comprehended by both.</p><p>What happened at the Lake.<br/>
----<br/>
Echo stared at the green light that rested unbothered at the bottom of the lake. Her clothes were soaked, and her hair had started to dry up with the fire Hope had started while Echo still struggled to catch her breath.</p><p>The cracking of fire was the only thing that kept them from absolute silence until Hope spoke up.</p><p>"You know, Echo, I really thought you were smart," Hope said, looking at Echo, who refused to look at her.</p><p>It had taken a while for Hope to cool down and stop snarling at Echo for all the reasons she had been absolutely insensible. She had snuck out in the middle of the night without telling anyone and had recklessly dived into the lake.</p><p>"I told you," she said, calmly, "I was not trying to get to the anomaly."</p><p>Hope snickered and moved so that she was kneeling right beside Echo.</p><p>"Echo, you could've drowned," She started, Echo still gazing forward. "What then?"</p><p>Echo looked down at her hands that were starting to shake. Hope noticed and immediately stood up to get the knitted shawl she had discarded on the ground before she had lunged towards the lake to get Echo. Echo watched her curiously and frowned when Hope approached her again, shawl in hand.</p><p>"And as much as I enjoy watching you suffer the consequences of your actions," Hope said, kneeling in front of Echo again. "We need you."</p><p>Echo froze at the words. She could not remember the last time anyone had said that to her. She stared as Hope as she held up the shawl and shook the dirt off of it. Hope's skin reflected the smooth motion of the flames, and her hazel eyes had a glint of something Echo had not yet seen in her. She looked at Echo and grinned before she leaned forward and carefully wrapped the shawl around Echo's shoulders.</p><p>Echo was already in awe of the younger woman, but her fierce personality became incredibly fascinating when Echo noticed that Hope was directing all that energy towards her.</p><p>Once Hope was done wrapping Echo up in the shawl, she remained still before Echo, unsure of what to do or say next. She noticed that Echo's eyes looked softer than usual, and she swallowed, confused when she saw Echo's eyes darting to her lips for the fraction of a second.</p><p>Her chest tightened up in a way she had never felt before. She knew she wanted something, and she was not quite sure of what it was, but she felt her body moving closer to Echo's, and Echo looked at her, a small gasp escaping her lips.</p><p>"Hope, what--" Echo started, but she was forced to be quiet when her body reacted to Hope's forehead against hers.</p><p>Echo was taken aback by how much better this felt than anything she had ever experienced.</p><p>A simple forehead touch, and she thought she had forgotten how to breathe.</p>
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